


If Wishes Were Fishes

by adorkablephil (kimberly_a)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Be Careful What You Wish For, Fans, M/M, Wish Fulfillment, slightly meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-27 06:05:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16212995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimberly_a/pseuds/adorkablephil
Summary: Phil wishes for a normal life, but doesn’t like the result





	If Wishes Were Fishes

**Author's Note:**

> Spontaneously written this morning for the @phandomficfests bingo square “wish fulfillment.” I’d planned to write something entirely different for this, but woke up with this story in my head. I think it’s a plot that’s been written a million times before, but here’s my take on it.

****“You know, sometimes I wish this hadn’t all gotten as big as it has. Like … we could just have normal lives without people fucking stalking us everywhere we go!”

Phil didn’t usually get angry like this, but the fact that a fan had followed Dan down the street so persistently that he hadn’t felt safe coming home because he didn’t want someone that obsessive to know their address had just pushed him over the edge. Dan shouldn’t feel like he had to take a taxi and drive around before returning to his own home!

He went to bed that night with his emotions roiling, acknowledging that they’d chosen this life, they’d chosen to live a life where people might follow them around and take creep shots of them and ambush them in airports when they were jetlagged and just wanted to go somewhere to sleep. But sometimes he really did wish they could just live normal lives like everyone else.

 

* * *

 

Phil woke the next morning surprised that Dan wasn’t in the bed. Since it was unlikely that he’d woken up before Phil, chances were good that he’d never gone to bed at all and had instead stayed up all night. Again.

Putting on his glasses, Phil sat up in bed and looked around, only to find the bedroom more of a disaster than usual.

In fact, the bedroom didn’t look the same at all.

The room wasn’t the right shape, and the duvet wasn’t the right color, and the bed wasn’t even the right size. But Phil had watched enough episodes of “The Twilight Zone” to know he should get up to investigate what else might be different.

He hesitantly stepped out into the hall, where socks littered the floor, and walked toward where the most light seemed to be coming from, which he presumed would be the lounge.

Action figures, plushes, photographs, and plants in various stages of death throes decorated the shelves as usual, but only one laptop sat on the coffee table. He walked into the adjacent kitchen to find all the cabinets slightly ajar. One cabinet contained a few mugs, and none of them were Dan’s.

In fact, he had thus far seen no sign of Dan anywhere in the flat.

Searching around, Phil eventually located his phone and decided to phone Dan to find out what the heck was going on around here, but Dan wasn’t even listed in his contacts.

Phil started to get really afraid now. A Twilight Zone world in which Dan Howell didn’t exist was not okay with him! Not for a second!

Sitting down at his laptop, he googled Dan but only found the Howell family’s familiar phone number in Wokingham. Nothing about Dan himself online, which was obviously extremely strange. Phil didn’t have the closest relationship with Dan’s family, but maybe Dan’s mum could help?

Phil phoned their number and, luckily, Dan’s mum answered. Phil had a better relationship with her than with Dan’s dad. “Karen,” he sighed in relief. “I’m trying to find Dan. And everything is strange. But I’m hoping if I can just talk to him we can work this out. Do you know where he is?”

The woman on the phone sounded very stiff when she asked abruptly, “Who is this?”

“Um,” Phil hesitated. Karen should know his voice. “It’s … it’s Phil. Phil Lester. You know … Dan’s … friend.” Dan’s family had never, even after all these years, been very good about acknowledging their relationship, so Dan and Phil had chosen to just go along with the fictional platonic housemates story in order to keep the peace.

“You’re a friend of Dan’s?” Karen sounded skeptical.

Utterly confused and increasingly frightened that Karen not only didn’t recognize his voice but apparently didn’t even recognize his name, Phil said, “Yeah. Um …  _good_  friends.”

“Dan doesn’t  _have_  any good friends,” Karen replied flatly.

Phil stared mutely at the phone for a moment with no idea what to say in reply to that. But apparently she knew where Dan was, so he just needed to get Dan’s phone number from her and he’d be able to work this out with Dan. They could work anything out together, even in a Twilight Zone world. What should he say? “We’re … um … friends from way back. We haven’t talked in a while. But I’d really like to get back in touch.”

Karen sounded suspicious when she asked, “What was your name again?”

“Phil. Phil Lester.”

Dan’s mum grumbled, “I’ll go see if he’s awake yet,” but Phil was relieved to learn that Dan was nearby and he should be able to speak with him soon.

A moment later, Dan’s sleepy voice came on the phone, “Hello?”

“Dan!” Phil cried. “Oh my god! I’m so glad to hear your voice! What the heck is going on?”

“Phil?” Dan replied, sounding confused. “Phil Lester … from back when we used to do YouTube? I mean, it’s good to hear from you, but it’s been ages! How have you been?”

Phil’s eyes widened. Dan sounded like he barely remembered him! And uncomfortable, like maybe they hadn’t parted on the best of terms but Dan was trying to be friendly.

“Um … good. I think. I mean, yeah, good.” Phil wondered what he was supposed to say next. “Um … how have  _you_  been?”

Dan sounded awkward. “Oh, you know, I get by.”

“What are you doing these days?” Phil asked, flailing wildly in an effort to gain some kind of information about the situation.

“Oh,” Dan sounded embarrassed, “you know. Still getting benefits … ever since that thing at university. Living with my parents. It sucks, but … when you can’t work you do what you can, right?”

Dan was on benefits? Since university? And he wasn’t able to work? Why?

“I mean, maybe if we’d really given that YouTube thing a go things would have turned out different, you know? I like to think that, anyway.” Dan sounded both wistful and sad. “But if wishes were fishes…”

Phil didn’t know what to say to that. They hadn’t gotten seriously involved with YouTube? It started to dawn on him that … maybe … without YouTube … when Dan had his crisis at university, he wouldn’t have had anything else to turn to, to give his life meaning. Had he … had he fallen into some kind of depression and been unable to find his way out? Had he been living with his parents ever since?

“Yeah,” Phil replied hesitantly. “If wishes were fishes.”

“So,” Dan seemed extremely uncomfortable now. “What have you been doing? Since giving up YouTube, I mean?”

Phil had given up YouTube, too? What the heck had he been doing with his life? He glanced around the lounge for some kind of clue, but came up empty. “Oh,” he stammered, “this and that.” He grimaced, unsure what to say. “Nothing in particular, I guess.” What would his life had been like if he’d given up YouTube and lost his relationship with Dan all those years ago? He hated to think about it. “I just,” Phil hesitated, then continued, “I just wanted to hear your voice, you know? We were so close.”

“Yeah,” Dan’s voice sounded warmer now. “We were. That was a really good time. I wish…” he trailed off as if stopping himself from saying something he shouldn’t. Then he continued, “I wish maybe we’d given the YouTube thing a more serious try. Maybe now we’d be rich and famous!” He laughed.

“Yeah,” Phil replied numbly. “Maybe we would.”

“Well, I should get going,” Dan said, sounding sad. “It was nice talking to you again, though, and remembering the good times.”

“Yeah,” Phil said again. “The good times.”

And then Dan ended the call and Phil simply stood there, holding his phone in his hand, staring at nothing. He and Dan had both quit YouTube? Dan was living with his parents and—if Phil knew anything about him after all these years and could read anything in his voice—was desperately unhappy? What was Phil’s own life like? Did he even want to find out?

He decided that no. No, he did not want to find out. He wanted to go back to bed, and fall back asleep, and wake up to everything being normal again. The phone rang in his hand, and an unfamiliar number was identified as “Work.” Phil silenced the phone and dropped it on the rug as if it had burnt the skin of his hand.

No. He definitely didn’t want to find out anything more about this world. He just wanted his life back, and—most of all—he wanted Dan back.

So he walked back into the unfamiliar bedroom, crawled back into the unfamiliar bed, and pulled up the unfamiliar duvet until it completely covered his head. “I wish I had it all back,” he murmured to himself, fighting tears. “I just want it all back.”

It took him a long time, and he didn’t succeed in his struggle against the tears, but eventually he did fall back asleep.

 

* * *

 

Phil woke with his head still under the duvet and dreaded finding out what existed outside this bed. Had it all been a terrible dream? Or would he still be in that horrible flat with all the socks on the floor and only one laptop and none of Dan’s mugs in the cabinet?

Then he felt the bed shift and an arm snaked around his waist, pulling him close to a warm body. “Why do you have the duvet pulled up over your head?” Dan’s sleepy voice asked. “I couldn’t even see you to give you a kiss when I came to bed.”

Phil pulled the duvet down abruptly and turned to look at Dan’s beautiful puffy sleep face with his hair all sticking up and the creases from the pillowcase on his cheek, and Phil wrapped his arms around him and held him tighter than he ever had before.

“Whoa!” Dan exclaimed, sounding a bit more awake. “What’s all that for? Bad dreams?”

Phil kissed Dan on the lips, then on both his cheeks and his nose and his chin and his forehead and then his nose again until Dan was laughing. “It’s like being in bed with an enthusiastic puppy!” he giggled.

“The worst dreams,” Phil finally answered him, going back to just holding him close. “The worstest of worstest worst dreams ever.”

Dan pulled his face away slightly so that he could give Phil a soft, gentle kiss, and then said, “I’m sorry you had nightmares. But everything’s okay now.”

Tears sprang to Phil’s eyes as he nodded. He couldn’t speak past the lump in his throat, so he just nodded again and gave Dan another kiss.

They lay there together in bed for a long time before Dan leaned over to pick up his phone and groaned, “Oh, it is  _way_  too early! I was up late playing Skyrim and I want to sleep at least another three hundred hours!”

“No,” Phil replied, finally calming down a bit. “No, let’s … let’s go to the shopping centre.”

Dan stiffened. “Are you forgetting about yesterday? I’m not really wanting to run into any fans today, Phil. I just want to hide at home and pretend like we’re normal people who don’t have gazillions of people watching our every move.”

“But most of them aren’t like that,” Phil replied quickly. “Most of them aren’t going to follow us around or do anything creepy … they just love us.” Dan still looked dubious. Phil kissed him again and then stroked his cheek. “We’re really lucky to have so many people who love us. Maybe it would be good to go out and remind ourselves that most of them are really sweet and kind. Think about the meet-and-greets, how happy they make you. Wouldn’t it be nice to just … just meet some people who like what we do? People who say we make their lives better … just by being us and doing what we love?”

Dan rolled his eyes and sighed. “Well, when you say it like  _that_ …”

Dan hauled himself out of bed with a groan and stretched, then gave Phil a grin. “Let’s go out and meet our adoring public.”

Phil laughed, knowing that Dan was joking … and yet that what he said was true at the same time. There were a lot of people who adored them … and he and Dan adored their fans, too. It was like a mutual adoration society composed of millions of people.

It was time to go out and experience some mutual adoration. Sometimes it might be the best medicine.


End file.
